Medicare Switch is a Slow Moving Disaster

You all likely know that the feds forced low-income Medicaid patients to shift to Medicare-Part D plans three weeks ago. Under Medicaid, patients had their medication costs picked up by the state. But with the shift, patients are now covered by private insurerers and have to meet small co-pays. I've been hearing with growing alarm that this has turned into a disaster. Patients with physical and mental ailments put in their paperwork like good kids, but around the country many of these private insurance companies have so botched things that patients go to their pharmacist only to be told "Sorry, we have no records of you, come back soon." Patients with chronic conditions walk away empty handed. I haven't yet heard of some poor unfortunate keeling over from a heart attack as a result, but there are growing accounts like this of people ending up crashing and burning and being admitted to psych hospitals. Sooner or later, I'm sure we'll hear of a suicide as well. This whole business was imposed on the country by President Bush, allegedly to cut insurance costs for the feds and to provide better access to medications of any kind for seniors. These goals are not being met. It is time for the feds to step in and either fix this mess or go back to the old system, which didn't work so well either but it was a far cry better than this bullshit.